Traffic exposure hampers lung development in kids

Children who grow up near busy roads or highways have significant impairments in their lung development that lead to acute respiratory problems like asthma and bronchitis, a team of US researchers report.

In the largest and longest study of its kind conducted till date, researchers found that children who lived within 500 meters of busy motorways during their age of 10 to 18 years reported significantly lower lung volume and peak flow as compared to children who lived more than 1,500 meters away.

Children who grew up within 500 meters of busy highways achieved only 97 per cent of their predicted lung volume, and only 93.4 per cent of their maximum air flow when breathing out, results of the study pointed out.

Though various previous studies have found links between pollution and lung damage, the results of the new study are more comprehensive and convincing, researchers claim.

The research team led by Dr James Gauderman, Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California followed 3,677 children in 12 southern Californian communities for eight years, measuring their lung function every year.

The results showed that the lungs of the children who had lived within 500 meters of a busy highway with traffic pollution were less developed and had poorer lung functioning than those who had lived at least 1,500 meters away.

”Living near traffic pollution means that more of the ultrafine particles and carbon emitted from vehicle exhausts, particularly from diesel fumes, get deep into the lungs. Toxic chemicals are also present in traffic pollution, such as nitrogen dioxide which affects the ability of the lungs to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide with the bloodstream”, Gauderman explained.

The results of the 13 year long study are published in the January 26 online edition of The Lancet.